Valentinus
by Britani Gael
Summary: Sorry, Lady, my hands are tied."


**Title**: Valentinus  
**Fandom**: Devil May Cry  
**Words**: 1000  
**Rating**: PG

* * *

Valentine's Day was just like any other day, as far as Dante was concerned, except this year. This year was _special_. 'Course the only thing that made this February fourteenth was the fact that a bunch of overgrown bats—seriously, fucking _bats_, except with little clawed hands and straight out of Hell—had flown in with the dawn and proceeded to hew their way through a good part of downtown by noon.

At least the little fucks were easy to mow down with gunfire.

"We should keep moving," Lady said. She was systematically reloading every single one of her weapons, moving through them like she was going down a list. "If we keep this up—"

"We can catch a matinee show?"

She ignored him.

Whatever. Dante dropped Ebony and Ivory back into his holsters and crouched down next to one of the demon carcasses. "You know what? This is freakin' _hilarious_. They've got little—"

"Is that so?" she answered, and he didn't need to look at her face to know she was scowling at him.

"Are you kidding me? Look at this." He caught the thing by the edge of a wing—he'd remember to wash his hands later, that was for damn sure—and he held it up fpr her to see. "It's got a little _bow_ in its hands."

She set her jaw. "Dante," she said. "People are _dead_."

There was so much blood in the air that he could barely breathe without feeling dizzy from it all, but she thought she was giving him _news_. Instead of looking at her, he glanced across the street to a pair of bodies, human, this time. A guy and a girl, maybe a couple years short of being legal. Probably out on a date.

He dropped the demon, stood up and shrugged. "Or _don't_ have a sense of humor. What-the fuck-ever."

"Forget it," she said.

Dante opened his mouth to retort, but the lady had already turned the corner. He thought about going a different way, divide and conquer—then the gunfire started up again.

"You know," he said, as soon as he'd jogged up to join the fray. "You and demons, you guys have a lot in common."

Lady snapped a weapon in his direction, and fired about five times in the vicinity of his head.

"_Ouch_." That was it, if only 'cause no cuss words sprung to mind, just_ouch_. She hadn't shot him, only grazed him, and he wiped the blood off his forehead before it could drip into his face. "What the hell is your—"

"_Shut up_."

The wave of the bat things wasn't slowing down, but it didn't look like she needed any help just yet. Dante's guns stayed in the holsters. "Let me know when you're _done_," he said, folding his hands behind his head. "Have fun."

It would take her a while, with half the firepower.

Dante took the time to glance around.

Pretty much all the victims were the same, young or _with_ someone, most of them both. Even weirder was the fact that the monsters were pretty damn consistent—usually there was some kinda buildup, but this was all just more of the same.

"Neither of you guys have a sense of humor."

Lady glared at him between shots. "What are you talking about?"

"That's what you've got in common. The monster cupids, the people eating, taking out the lovebirds?" He pulled Ivory and casually shot a couple of the demons out of the air. "Demons don't think that kinda shit's funny, either."

The gave her the second she needed to shove another magazine into her machine gun. "Are you making a _point_."

The demons were clustered at the end of the road—this was the end game. "You'll see."

It didn't take that long.

He actually pulled his sword to cut down the last dozen or so, because this was tiring and he was bored. They fell to pieces, Dante swung Rebellion onto his back, and standing in front of him was just a man, covered head to toe in blood.

Dante heard Lady fall absolutely silent, at his back.

The guy wasn't much to look at, kinda short, kinda pudgy, kinda like Enzo used to. His eyes were roving wildly, back and forth, from Dante to Lady to bodies to the sky and back, not really making much of a pattern. And he was definitely human.

"And there we are," Dante said. He ran a hand through his hair.

Lady stepped up and leveled a pistol at the man's face.

Even with all his speed, Dante only barely managed to redirect the shot, grabbing her hand so that it went far above the man's head. The intended victim didn't even seem to _notice_ what had happened—his eyes were still roaming.

Lady spun on him. "What are you _doing_?" she demanded.

He let her go. "Sorry, Lady," he said. "Guy's human. My hands are tied."

"He did all of this! He killed all those people!"

Almost definitely true, especially considering how the demons had been circling him, clinging to him. Demons got into this world by just about any means they could, and humans summoning them wasn't unheard of. Usually the culprits were a bit less cracked in the head, but…

"More will come, you know," the guy in question was saying, his voice low. "You'll see. More will come."

"We have to take care of him," Lady said.

She was right, probably.

Dante stuck his hands in his pockets and walked away.

"Dante!"

"Have fun with that," he called.

He made it about fifty feet before he stopped and waited, and he only flinched a little when he heard the gunshot.

Lady wasn't the type to stand around and try to explain herself, so he didn't expect her to say a thing when she walked up to him. And she didn't, not at first—in fact, it was about a minute before she finally started, "Dante, why—"

"You're never gonna find out why he did that," Dante said. "Doubt it'd make any sense, anyway."

"That's not what I—"

"Wanna get some pizza?"

He saw the debate on her face, he saw her almost argue and then think better of it, and when she finally gave up, her expression said that, too. "Sure," she said, rubbing one of her hands absently on her shirt. It left bloody fingerprints. "We can… do that."

He could've gone on, he might've mentioned the fact that he hadn't really thought it was funny, he could've assured her that he didn't really think she'd done anything wrong.

Or he could take a little bit of comfort in knowing that Lady would never bring the subject up again.

"Let's go," he said.

She only hesitated for a second, and then her footsteps fell in behind his.


End file.
